Easily removable insulated garage door / false wall?

[redfalcon6]

Howdy guys. I'm building a new garage / shop, and it has a garage door sized entry. It's a fully heated / cooled shop. I live in the north, so keeping it airtight in the winter is important. Even though I won't keep it at 70, I also don't want to try and raise the temperature of the tools and slab from -10!

Two observations:

1. That entry will only ever be used maybe once a year at most to get big projects in and out.

2. It does have the only opportunity for windows in the shop (it's built into a walkout foundation.)

Any thoughts on doors / removable panels that would provide good insulation and air sealing, make an "occasionally functional" door opening without too much fuss, and also could let some light in?

I'm considering just putting an insulated door in there, or an insulated door with false removable panels behind it. But a full garage door setup seems like overkill given that I will never really use it.

Thoughts from the garage hive mind?

 

[bad_idea]

Pair of french doors? I had a pair in the master bedroom of my last house that exited to the back patio. They were something like 7' wide and standard entry door height. Would that be a large enough opening for large projects? They were full glass front with a mini blind built in the middle of the glass panels.

 

[Viper98912]

When you say garage door, do you mean a single bay 8' or double bay 16'?

I second like said above, something like large french doors. You could even make the wall extra thick and put in a set of exterior storm doors (glass) to provide two layers of door with an air gap in the middle. Only problem I see is that I don't think they make 4' slabs, you may need to do something like hinged or hinged + sliding doors for you to open the full 8'

 

[redfalcon6]

Single bay - 8 feet -- so at least slightly simpler.

I am strongly considering french style carriage doors. My fear is air sealing is not that great, and the R might not as high.

Maybe some custom built super insulated carriage doors on a giant murphy hinge of some type?

 

[Voi]

I have an insulated 6' steel French door that separates one part of my shop. I don't know the R value but I'd be surprised if it didn't seal better than a multi panel overhead door.

At one point we considered buying an even bigger one to be the man door between house & attached. We were considering making a small portion of our house that was originally designed to be drive under garage back into more of a garage type space.

We priced a 7' steel French door with a fire rated T astragal & a handicap threshold & I recall it being reasonable. But this was many years ago.

The handicap threshold was for rolling things like ATV's or small trailers over.

Never did go through with that project & we now regret it.

 

[SGKent]

My parents used a wooden frame with clear plastic stapled to it for years until they could put in double pane windows. It worked so well I did the same on an apartment I lived in when younger. It was a cheap way of getting insulation without expense. Were it me, I might leave the roll up door but be sure it is insulated, then build a folding accordian style set of frames from some kind of hard wood that fits next to the garage door. Then you fold the accordian out of the way when you don't need it. If you want something less expensive just staple and tape plastic across the inside of the opening, and tear it down when you need to open the outside door. If you want even more insulation use a series of frames with thin luan on them that hook together and glue plastic wrapped fiberglass batts to the luan between it and the outside door. Make the panels small enough that you can lift each one out of the way. Those would be harder to store than a frame with plastic on it but certainly give more insulation.

The only other solution I can see would be to get an extra deep rollup and put thicker insulation in it. Just a quick google I found some companies that offer up to an R19 rollup door. That is a solution too. Most are like R6 to R8 so any upgrade there would help too.

 

[kbs2244]

Do a youtube search on "hanger doors"

The airplane guys like to have big but weather right doors.
And a lot of them a good at DIY

 

[Barrytomia]

Easily removable insulated garage door / false wall

When I was kid our garage door sping broke and went through the back wall of the garage into the dining room

Before they had those safety springs with the cable down the middle

 

[BPJOOP93]

Just do a garage door.

 

[kaymccampbell]

I have a pair of insulated Clopay garage doors, that look like carriage doors, with windows in them. They are very nice and warm. They have 2.5-3" of foam in them.